Update: I was unfortunately not aware of Shamus Young's severe criticism of Fallout 3 available here to link in the original piece and I regret that. It dovetails rather nicely with what I've written and it's much better executed than my piece. I strongly recommend anyone...

Yep - all us Chinese folk come from the circus.

Ah, destiny. The stuff of countless works of literature, arguments, and just about,
well, everything. I could wax on, but instead I'll remind us all that there's
such a thing as free will. Use it. You control what you play. And hope that you
aren't destined to play Fighter Destiny 2.

Two players battle atop a cube. Rather than using a traditional round system,
Fighter Destiny 2 uses a 'point' system. Certain throws net 2 points.
Actually whooping the other character's ass to nothing nets 3. And an incomplete
round is left to the judge's decision, leaving 1 point up for grabs.

This whole system just spells out tedium, as it's unnatural and slow. Fighter
Destiny 2 is obviously trying to be an arcade style fighter. Isn't the original
point of fighting to beat the crap out of one another? The worthiness of a throw
should be equated with character damage, not some point system.

Suitably, a slow point system is married to a slow fighting system. Yes, the
game moves sluggishly, as you proceed in what can be best described as a slap
fight, separated occasionally with ho-hum special moves. I would think that
a game at this pace might try to be more skill oriented, but it still feels
like a button masher.

Now you can have your fighting spoon fed in several ways. Of course there's
Vs. mode, which takes you through all the characters. Noticeably, they've also
tried out a "Boardgame" mode that takes your character through a giant
maze of opponents and challenges. You can accumulate points and build different
character attributes. Sounds well enough on paper, but it has all the glitz
and glamour of Mario Party, minus the 4 player mini-games
that made that game palatable.

The characters are your standard issue - "Hey, let's feature people from all around
the world! And while we're at it, let's take racial stereotypes and exaggerate
them to the point of being insulting!" Right. Straight up, an uglier or more boring
bunch of characters has yet to be gathered.

There's
your Ryu guy from Japan, a brutish woman from Brazil, and don't forget the consummate
Chinese girls in Chinese circus clothing (because all us Chinese folk come from
the circus). There's also the hip-hop love child of Eminem and Sisqo. Two marketing
ploys finally combined into one fighter. Yippee.

The graphics are sharp, but otherwise break little ground or do anything that
has not been done before. The characters are mapped out decently, albeit still
somewhat blocky, and the animation doesn't look bad. But after most of us have
played games like Soul Calibur
and Dead or Alive 2,
you still come away disappointed, even when you take the system into account.
I know the N64 could have done better.

Fighting music has taken a mighty step backwards. Supposedly, a set of international
sounding tunes with generous woodpipes constitutes music to fight against. A
drunken Yanni could have done better music. And let's couple these less than
average sounds with horrible voices.

Bad announcers come and go, but this announcer...whooo-boy. Bad. Very bad. "This is going to be an excellent fight." Not exactly something that instills the sense of combat into you, is it? Alright! Excellent fights! That's what I'm here to see. And when it comes out in the voice of someone marginally more excited than Ben Stein, you know it'll be truly "excellent." Barf.

I can see your destiny right now. You are going to the store. You are not buying this game. You are buying me a sandwich. I am thanking you in advance. In short, this game is not your answer to the fighting deprived N64. It is sluggish and boring, unoriginal and tedious. It makes me ill. Don't buy this game. Buy me a sandwich.